1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a die for crimping an electrical terminal onto a wire lead.
2. A Brief Description of the Prior Art
Crimping machines are well known in the electrical components industry for the purpose of crimping or forming an electrical metal terminal onto a stripped insulated wire lead. Machines of this type generally comprise a crimping die which is adapted to crimp a given styled terminal and a punch press associated with the die for actuating the die.
Conventional crimping dies include a die shoe with a terminal support structure for supporting and feeding a strip of terminals to a crimp station which overlies the anvil. Punch means are mounted over the anvil and is adapted to move into contact with the terminal at the crimp station to form with the anvil an electrical connection between the wire lead and terminal.
In the past, if it was desired to use a different gauged wire, it was necessary to make an adjustment on the die so that the larger or smaller wire can be accommodated during the crimping operation. This adjustment might have to be made for either the conductor crimp or the insulation crimp. The manual adjustment might have been inaccurate or, at the very least, relatively time consuming to make.
In addition, various differences caused by tolerances in the wire may result in an imperfect crimp owing to the fact that the punch and anvil of the die are effective only over a relatively small range of tolerances.